Dirt

I was a senior in high school when I wrote "Dirt." I think I had recently listened to the Red Hot Chili Peppers album, "Blood Sugar Sex Magic", which may have influenced the rap-ish style of the song.  I remember sitting in my old bedroom for some reason, and writing the song in one sitting.  Even at 17, I had written epic songs. At five verses, this certainly qualified, but unlike some of my other epics, there wasn't any fat to trim. If you scroll down and read the lyrics, I think you'll see why I'm justifiably proud of this accomplishment. 

At that point I was heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, and what I can only call underground music- alternative, punk? It wasn't alternative yet, and it wasn't punk like the Clash.  I listened to Jane's Addiction, Dinosaur Jr. and I frequented hardcore shows in Louisville, because that seemed to be the only scene for young musicians, but I can't say that I was ever welcomed into that scene. At any rate, this is what results when you combine early 90s alternative with Bob Dylan.  

However, unlike all those sources, I was really trying to dig through the dirt at that age to find something positive.  Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall" and "It's All-Right, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" were tremendoustly influential in terms of creating songs that present a cascade of images to the listener, but they both illustrated a kind of existential crisis, which I resisted.  Many of the underground music that I listened to had a cynical view of the world, which I also resisted.  As dark a song as "Dirt" might seem at first, it's not a cynical song. If anything, I was trying to demonstrate the bankruptcy of a worldview that reduces life to a shallow, materialistic emptiness.  How ugly is everything, if everything is dirt?

The song was easily Satori's "hit", assuming that you could understand what I was saying. Still, the song never left the set list in all the years of Satori's existence.  Often-times, it was the show-closer, with guitar solos, and drum solos.  The song always propelled itself into a lengthy jam.  The song evolved over the years and became less punk and more rap-rock over the years.  My idea of a rap delivery was MCA of the Beastie Boys.  

When we recorded this song in Pittsburgh for this album, we were playing the song live- minus vocals.  I felt that I had flubbed the solo, but Brian Gager and Andrew Lee (our producers) convinced me that it sounded great.  Because of the lack of sonic separation, we would have had to record the song from scratch, but that wasn't their motivation.  I think they thought my recovery made the flub seem intentional, and the intentionally late return from the second bridge gave the recording a kind of exciting uncertainty.

Brian had the idea that the video should end in  spy chase.  We used to joke that we made spy music, and the ending to "Dirt" certainly had that vibe. As you listen to the end, imagine a car chase with a James Bond type in a tux and fancy car. 

How much more can you demand of me?

I tell you the truth, you jail me for profanity

You're free of criminals, save for your own vanity

You ever be totally clean?

How many victims in your crusade for purity?

How close is your endgame of security?

Honesty is just another casualty until your vision is complete

So let's all clap hands

Don't blink if it hurts

No call to understand

If everyone is dirt.

Soul game, nothin' could be easier

Don't believe, it's a question of pleasing her

How much are you willing to release for her

Nothing but everything will do

Mystify, rectify, justify, testify

We've got a darkness nothing can purify

Don't be a hero Heros are crucified

Nobody sheds a tear

So let's all clap hands

Don't blink if it hurts

No call to understand

If everyone is dirt.

Once I had a dream, I had a vision

A light was tearing through all of religion

Saved from a head-on collision

Ready to taste our fate

Stared at- a victim of analysis

Tied down- political paralysis

Don't turn away! Visions of apocalypse

Tell me it's not too late

So let's all clap hands

Don't blink if it hurts

No call to understand

If everyone is dirt.

You stand tall, the moral majority

Let me introduce you to the mortal minority

Don't be afraid, it's the death of authority

We're ready to break away

Ask yourself what is it that's chaining me

All these years of testing and training me

Pressures' on, stripping and straining me

Why should I live that way?

So let's all clap hands

Don't blink if it hurts

No call to understand

If everyone is dirt.

You never blinked once at a traffic fatality

You were never quite sure it was a part of reality

Time's up! Face your own mortality

As gruesome as it may seem

Naked now, born without a history

Could it be the key to your nagging misery?

Now that your clean, it's the end of your mystery

Is it as bad as you dreamed?

 

Lost and Found: With the Wind

With the Wind

So, if you want to hear all the details about this song, you should check out my previous post. No song really exemplifies the idea of material that had been lost and found than this recording.  For the first two years of its existence, I played this song a lot, and then not so much.  I recorded the song to a click track, and I'm not sure I gave the song much thought until Colin Brown laid the drums down. It had always been a folk song, and now it was a rock song. Dave Humphries bass really filled out the rockin' nature of the recording.

Except I had decided that this was going to be an acoustic album, and so I didn't want any electric guitars.  Meredith Noel solved the problem by adding her viola track, which may be the favorite thing I've ever recorded with her. The viola was able to cut through the mix and hold the listener's attention for the duration of the song. Joel Serdenis added some mandolin, but it was getting lost in the mix. Later Steve Cooley added another mandolin, but we were still not hearing what we wanted to. Then Steve brought out a mandola, which I didn't even know was a thing, but two tracks of that and the song was pretty much done. It's hard to make acoustic instruments rock out, but I think we did it.

When we were sequencing the album, we debated whether or not to open with this song. I think the first half of the album is sonically light, and then things get dark once this song begins.  Give the album a listen, and you'll notice that "With the Wind" kicks of a plunge into a darker mood.

Bloom

Bloom

This song was written in Brooklyn, New York.  I was working for a law-firm, and found myself unable to date.  I'm pretty shy by nature.  This was before online dating, which was better for me, because I didn't meet people who weren't at least curious about me. I went to parties, but I tended to stick to my friends like glue, and nobody ever introduced me to anyone.  At one point, I tried to date this gal that I knew from Louisville.  We went out on about five or six dates, and then she mentioned that she had a boy-friend. I sure don't miss those days. 

I wrote a lot back then, so I suppose it wasn't all bad.  I wrote some philosophy, poetry and a whole lot of songs.  I wasn't really thinking too much about the process.  I don't think I consciously chose to forego a rhyme scheme on the verses.  This song was very easy to write, but hard to play, so I didn't play it out much.  It took a couple of years before the awkwardness of the music felt natural, and that's when it was recorded. 

I sang lead, backing vocals, played guitar and organ

Colin Brown played drums

Dave Humphries played bass

Meredith Noel played viola

Steve Cooley played Mandolin

Mike Ross played the sizzling carrots. 

Lost and Found: Can't Afford to Lose a Friend

I wrote this song while recovering from a bout with cancer. I had had two surgeries, and the second one was rather invasive involving the removal of lymph nodes.  The question was whether the cancer had spread.  I suppose their is never a good time to get cancer, but this entire episode came to light after I had released my first solo album Who are the Navigators? I had managed to get some local airplay, and phone calls from major labels.  I had positive reviews.  It was a heady time. Next thing I know I'm in the hospital.

As if that wasn't enough, I had developed a crush on a gal who lived in NYC (I was in Louisville at the time).  If cancer raises the stakes in your life, it does it doubly for your love-life (or lack of love-life, as the case was).

Several weeks after my second surgery I began writing a bunch of songs.  This was one of them.  "The River" was another.  One of these days, I'm going to put out THAT album in its entirety.  In the mean-time... This song seems to be an expression of the expectation that this crush thing wasn't going to happen, but maybe that's not the end of the world. I was right on both counts.

Fast forward a couple of months.  I am recording Lost and Found, and this song makes it to the top of the list.  Colin Brown played drums, Dave Humphries played bass, Dan Africk sang back up.  Steve Cooley did just about everything else except for the acoustic guitar, harmonica and lead vocals (me).

The funny thing about this recording is that we recorded it too fast.  It was a running debate.  It wasn't until we'd recorded everything that we decided we needed to slow it down.  We slowed the tape down to do this, and that resulted in my voice sounding deeper. Also, if you try to play along to the song it's not exactly in the key of C.

Ever since this song was recorded, I have been playing it. It never goes out of style for me.

To Be Free: With the Wind

            I'm going to tell you a few things about this song.  The first is about the writing, and the second is about the recording. Here's the version on Spotify.

The Writing

            Freshman year in high-school was an opportunity to remake myself.  I remember the weekend before school started I had finally succumbed to Bob Dylan.  It was the song "Tangled Up in Blue" and though I had no idea what Dylan was doing I finally learned to take it in.  My brother had been listening to Dylan for a couple of years and I thought he was the funniest sounding thing I had ever heard.  It was a far cry from the perfect harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel.  But succumb, I did and a mix tape that I had made became the soundtrack to my first day of high-school.

Nobody really knew me and I could decide who it was that they would see.  And I took full advantage of this.  I had the advantage of nothing to lose.  I also started classes at an after-school theatre company called Walden Theatre. It was here that I met many of my life-long friends.  Walden put on about four productions a year and held classes for movement, improvisation and playwriting.  My brother and sister had both participated in this program and I was always jealous. 

            My involvement in this program started gradually.  For the first half of my freshman year I only participated on weekends.  This left me free during the week and so I spent a lot of time practicing piano and guitar as well as writing songs.  Having written "To Be Free", I knew that I had the ability to write a good song, but to tell you the truth, I wasn't exactly sure how I did it.  So there was a lot of trial and error.  I would like to think that every song I wrote has some spark of interest in it, I would only venture forth with a precious few.  

            I also was writing stories, poems and I was working on a full-length play.  In retrospect, I see that what I was doing was learning how to write by making every mistake very quickly, but I am glad I did not see it as that at the time, because I know that I would only have been discouraged.  I wanted to believe that everything that I was writing was brilliant.

            I had a very close friend named Dan, whom I had known since I was four and whom I used to pal around with all the time growing up.  He had moved away but was still living in Louisville, but because we were too young to do anything about it, we didn't see each other.  Well, he went to Ballard High with me and we became friends again.  That Christmas, his parents gave him a guitar and he was playing the rudiments quite comfortably by the end of the year. He had soul and the fact that he was such a good friend made playing music that much better. Plus, I got him into Dylan.

            Bob Dylan was a revelation to me.  Like the Monkees, listening to Bob Dylan felt like a secret no one else knew about.  I dressed up as Dylan for Spirit Week.  The more I listened to his music, the more I was in awe. I had written some good songs, I thought, but nothing like Bob Dylan.  How did he do it? Getting two lines to rhyme seemed impossible at times, and Dylan would tell impressionistic stories while weaving words together in all sorts of unusual ways.  

            By the Spring of my freshman year, I had written a long epic poem called, “The Road.”  I showed it to my friend Dan, and he was very impressed.  He liked my songs, and I remember trying to teach him “What we Both Know,” but he had never seemed all that impressed with any of my songs.  I had played them for Eric, and I had gotten a similar reaction. But Dan liked my epic poem, and I showed it to some other kids, and they liked it too. It made me feel like I could be a writer.

            That Spring break, I visited my brother and my sister at Yale.  It had made a real impression on me.  There was something about New England that made an impression on me. Perhaps it was the line in “Tangle Up in Blue” where Dylan sings about heading to the east coast that made me think that this was a place that I belonged.  There was something transformational about the area for me.   

            One day, I was in rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing.I was talking to my friend Gabe (a fellow actor), and we talked about writing a song together. It was a very creative place. In the play, I was a musician, and so I got to bring my guitar to rehearsals all the time.  I remember trying to write a song that began, “I’m a traveling man, that’s what they call me/I don’t stay in one place, but I stay happy.”  My friend Amy got a good chuckle out of that line.  Probably because I didn’t really fit the persona I was trying to create.  I was trying to find another line to the song, but I couldn’t find one.  Probably because it sucked, but I didn’t know that yet.  I started talking to Gabe about a good story for a song, and we came up with the idea of a guy who falls in love with a girl who kills herself. 

I said I would start the song, and he could finish it, but I ended up writing the whole song in about an hour when I got home that night.  When I saw him next he didn’t seem to mind.  Here’s what I wrote:

Oh, what a summer,

Oh, what a season of wonder,

Saw the light felt the thunder,

Oh, just like the wind.

We all drove to New England

The way up we were all singin'

Road down my ears were just ringin'

Things change with the wind.

When I saw her face my heart stood still

She said that her life had been unfulfilled

And that every flower made will always be killed

Seasons change and move with the wind.

You can run so far and run so fast

You can do what you want but it won't ever last

You run from yourself and you run from the past

But you know things change with the wind.

She asked me what was the point of it all

"We were made to stand up only to fall,"

I said, "You've got to teach yourself to stand tall,"

You gotta teach yourself to stand with the wind.

The next part was just like a dream

I don’t remember much, I remember the scream

She told me that things they aren't what they seem

The illusions fade with the wind.

Oh, what a summer, 

Oh, what a season of wonder

Saw the light felt the thunder

Oh, with the wind

The wind dies down and the wind grows strong

She knew just what she was doing all along

Her voice sounds out like the song

The times will change with the wind.

            Unlike the other songs that I had been struggling with throughout this period, this one came easily.  I wrote it in one sitting.  I could pick out details and say where they came from.  For example, when I was talking about New England, I was picturing New Haven where my sister and brother where in school. And the woman in the song has a tragic quality that I associated with this girl at Walden.  But  I wasn't really trying to make any kind of statement or anything.  I know that it was heavily influenced by Dylan. Unlike most pop songs it has a folk structure.   

The Recording

When I started playing this song in front of other people, it was as close as I could get to a "hit".  People really liked the song, which was really weird, because it's not a pop-song, and wasn't intended to be.  When I finally got around to recording it (13 years after I wrote it), I recorded it for Lost and Found. That's a great album, and you can find it on Spotify, iTunes, etc.  Check it out. We went over every song on that album with a fine-toothed comb.

For a while I thought about putting out that same version on this album.  But I couldn't do it.  I wasn't ready to recycle material for a new album.  This is not a greatest hits, or anything where you expect to hear the same material.  So I decided to re-record it.  At first, it was just going to be me and my acoustic guitar, but I love to tinker in the studio.  Hopefully it's not overdone.  That was not the intention.  The intention was to make a camp-fire version of the song.  Enjoy!